Lessons Learned

How often do you hear people say, “Lesson learned?” Maybe you’ve even said it yourself!

For example

I have many “lesson learned” examples I could share. In my 20’s, I shared a moment of frustrated in my bestie neighbor with another neighbor. Of course, what I said got back to my bestie and our relationship was never the same. It wasn’t even that bad of a comment, it was that I didn’t talk to her about it, but to someone else. Now, I try very hard not to say unkind things about anyone. Lesson learned.

Have you noticed that often, when we have a lesson learned experience, it is of our own doing?

I recently had a chat with someone who was telling me about an injury they received that could have been very serious. The injury occurred by their own error. When I asked them, “What did you learn from this?” they looked at me like I had three eyes. It actually took them a minute to come up with something. Then we bantered some other options around and finally settled on “Stick to what you know.”

Truth

The reality of that situation was the person had never stopped to consider what they had learned from the experience. It’s very probable they would have a repeat injury because they hadn’t actually learned from the first one.

What is the lesson learned from this blog? I hope it is that when something out of the ordinary, for you, occurs you should ponder what lesson you learned from it. It may be a good experience that you would like to have happen again. What did you learn from it, how can it happen again, or maybe even be better? If it is something that wasn’t good, you will want to determine what you learned and consider how to avoid it in the future. If we don’t think about what happened and why, then we won’t learn and grow.

The next time something happens to you ask yourself what happened and why, then you can say, “Lesson learned.”